LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Cli;i|i. C'o{iijrirjlj! T)o. 

— ^£<l 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A GRIME AGAINST SOCIETY, 



supieiecih: 



OF 



LEONABD "WOOLSET BACON 



TO THE CITIZENS OF NORWICH, CONN., 



January 19, 1880, 



On the Occasion of Certain Infamous Pro- 






ceedings of the Officers of that 

Town under the State 

License Law. 



With a Preface and Notes. 



NEW YORK: 

AMERICAN TEMPERANCE PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

J. S. OGILVIE, PUBLISHER, 

29 Rose Stueft. 







j&f^ &?*& 






i 






i 



LIMITED LICENSE 



IN [TS RELATION TO 

THE] LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 
BY S. LEAMET. 

mphlet, in his discussion of the question of license In its relation 
i ni> to Uave brought forth a really practical eolution 
lion. 

Hid . aergy Lave been given to theoretical plans and methods, 
lulta wbeu an efforl has been made to put thein 
. without hesitation, that the plan proposed by this author in 
p ration, and ist the earnest consideration 

i ving thai it can l e practically carried out in every town and 
.\d. All true men and women who Uave been waging war against this great 
dl this plan with delight, and at Last make an effort to ha 
own town. 

' will Btudy tins plan, ami cannot fail to see that it is the n< 
i en working for. 

on will find in this plan a carrying out of their ideas, 
an I on of how the law can be enforced and not be burdensome or obnoxious 

ttUUtion should aid in the wide circulation of this pamphlet, 
ng out their views of th< Ion of the traffic from the standpoint of moral 

F dozen, $1.60, post-paid ; per hundred, sent by ex; 

:tni/atK.n or individual desiring to circulate 500 or 
ea. 

rmplished by tl. i I In Temperance than by the 

phlet. 



BUY YOUR OWN CHERRIES. 

BY JOHN W. KIRTON. 
l' EDITION. 12MO. 2J PAGES. 

!• hundred. 

Til! \N TEMPI BUSHING HOUSE has just published a new 

Temperance story, of which hnn 
which hai 

in any community than 
» low that i b 

[anization or individual desiring to 

THe American Temperance Publishing Honse, 

J. S. OG-ILVIE, Publisher, 

ROSE BTREET, NEW YORK. 



A CEIME AGAINST SOCIETY, 
SPEECH 

OF 

LEOiNARD WOOLSEY BACON 

TO THE CITIZENS OF NORWICH, CONN., 

."_ JAXTTARY 19, 1880, 

OX THE OCCASION OF CERTAIN INFAMOUS PRO- 
CEEDINGS OF THE OFFICERS OF THAT 
TOWX UNDER THE STATE 
LICENSE LAAY. 

WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES. 




J-ti C C 






NEW YORK: 
AMERICAN TEMPERANCE PUBLISHING HOUSE, 

J. S. OGILYIE, PUBLISHER, 
29 Rose Street. 

1880. 



7T 









Copyright, 1880, 
Bt J. 8. OGILVIE. 



PEEFACE. 



In preparing this speech for publication, at the request of the 
American Temperance Publishing House, I have not allowed myself 
the usual liberty of a public speaker in adapting the hasty utterance 
of the platform for more deliberate reading and criticism. With 
one exception, I have made no substantial change in it, and no 
change of form farther than, here and there, to make my meaning 
unmistakable. The one exception I wish to have distinctly noted. 
I had charged upon the parties primarily guilty of a Crime against 
Society this aggravation of their crime, that they had committed it 
in violation of their official oath. This was a mistake, the officers in 
question not having taken any oath of office. It is the only mistake 
of fact that has been pointed out to me in the whole speech, during 
all the excited discussion that has followed it. 

Nothing could so completely have justified and confirmed the 
speech, as the course which this discussion has taken. It completely 
verifies the surmise which I made in closing, that "temperance 
men" themselves had, in many instances, become so demoralized 
by certain corrupt sophistries prevalent among a certain class of 
lecturers, that they would be found tolerating, palliating, even 
approving, conduct which no healthy conscience can regard except 
with loathing. So far as I have learned, the defense of the incrim- 
inated officers is put simply upon the ground that their conduct as 
herein described was right, or at least not so very wrong; that their 
offense was a very common one, so common as to have ceased to be 
wicked; that there was good reason to guess that the people would 
like it, and that it is right for an office-holder to do wrong if it will 



IV PREFACE. 

please the majority; that it proves that you can aotezpect to accomp- 
lish anything under a license-law, and will have a tendency to make 

ote right at the next "local option;"' that the authors of 
this crime are persons of excellent previous character, and most 
devoted and consistent " temperance men;" that the manner, or the 
temper or the motives, of the indictment must be very bad; and that 
to hold these public officers personally responsible, by name, before 
the public, for any wicked ways of theirs in office, is in the highest 
degree reprehensible, and especially so in a minister of the gospel of 
peace and goood will. Can there be a more startling proof of a 
debased moral sense, in many persons who are boastful of their 
11 temperance 1 ' principles, than that they should be capable of defend, 
ing such acts by such arguments? I would be far from suggesting 
that all the friends of temperance in this town would so defend 
them ; but I do say that, so far as my knowledge goes, the open 
vindication of these unspeakably base and wicked acts is chiefly to 
be heard among those who claim to be "temperance men'' of the 
hiirlievt type. I see no evidence that the two guiltiest agents of this 
wickedness have lost standing with that class, while they have un- 
doubtedly gained great popularity with the criminal classes of the 
town. 

In this aspect, the case reveals a grave and terrible peril to the 
most important of our social reforms — a peril that is not confined 
to this region. It is for this reason that I have given my consent to 
an edition of my Speech for general circulation, commending it to 
the thoughtful consideration of the friends of temperance and public 
morals in all parts of the country. 

Lko^akd Woolsey Bacon. 

i :< ii. ( kn 

roary 17, 1880. j 



SPEECH. 



Gentlemen of the Reform Club, and Fellow- Citizens: 

I cannot afford to waste either your time or mine, this evening, 
with any rhetorical introduction. The business that brings us to- 
gether is too urgent, too grave, too sorrowful, for that. A public 
crime has been committed; a crime against God and man; a crime 
of unusual proportions, and extraordinary reach of fatal conse- 
quences; a crime shameful, infamous, and nTore than other crimes 
involving in its disgrace the character of the community. For it is 
a crime committed, not by ignominious wretches in evasion or viola- 
tion of the law, but by men hitherto reputable under the pretense — 
the false pretense — of the authority of law ; committed by public 
officers whose official duty it was to prevent it, in the name of the 
community itself, and apologized for under the pretense — the false 
pretense — that the popular will demanded it; committed, not by in- 
advertence, inconsiderate!}', ignorantly, but after long forethought, 
with full knowledge, against patient and earnest remonstrance, of 
deliberate, intelligent, set and wicked purpose; a crime which, be- 
ginning in perfidy to public duty and breach of solemn trust, went 
forward through breaking of plighted promise, through deliberate 
and conscious official falsehood, through the base tergiversation of 
trusted public men, to its consummation in the sneaking stealth be- 
fitting deeds of shame. 

I have not come hither this evening to excite public indignation 
against the disgraceful things that have been done in the name of 
this community b}' its officers. It is because the honest indignation 
of the public is already roused that you have sent for me to speak 
to you. The scorn and anger of this outraged people burns in men's 
eyes as they meet each other on the street, and bursts out in many a 
passionate word. But it craves some opportunity of common ex- 
pression, and finds none open to it. We all feel it, I am sure, to be 
a deficiency — this lack of a vehicle of public opinion — in a town 
which possesses many of the other appliances of modern civilization 
in such high perfection. Our rivers and intersecting railroads con- 



6 A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 

necfl qs with the travel and commerce of the world; and our tele- 
graph system with its hourly intelligence. Amongst ourselves the 
(minibus and horse-railroad service puts the center and circumfer- 
into mutual communication, and the telephone brings each 
citizen within whispering distance of every other. Our system of 
public schools, crowned by the noble Academy, is the admiration and 
envy of many a larger city. These arc some of the organs of a high 
civilization which Norwich possesses so richly as to make our de- 
ficiency the more felt. For we cannot but feel, especially at a time 
like this, when great matters of municipal policy and morality are 
agitating men's hearts to the depths, what a convenience, what an 
advantage, what a relief, what a blessing, it would be to Norwich if 
we only had — a newspaper! [Applause and laughter.] Think 
what great public interests might be advanced, what abuses might 
be rectified, what public mischiefs might be hindered, if only we 
had in Norwich such a thing as a daily newspaper. I believe that 
if the people of Norwich should find out what a convenient thing 
it is to have a daily newspaper, they would wonder how they ever 
got on so long without one, and how they ever supposed that they 
could answer the same purpose with a Daily Morning Eight-Dollar 
Little Wet Blanket for the Suppression of Public Opinion. [Long 
continued laughter and applause.] 

It is because the proper channels for the utterance of the just 
indignation of the people against public wickedness and outrage are 
clogged or shut off, that it is compelled to seek utterance in this 
more primeval way. 

But not utterance only. We need (I.) to study carefully together 
the proportions and dimensions of this crime, to know exactly what 
it is, its aggravations and its mitigations (if it has mitigations), that 
we may measure well our w r ords to the occasion, and secure our- 
om exaggeration and extravagance of expression. And we 
need also (II.) to inquire deliberately and carefully w r ho are the 
responsible and guilty parties to whose charge this crime is to be 
laid. (III.) Finally, we need to ask what is our duty as good citi- 
zens — what ought to be done, what can be done, in view of this 
tremendous crime; we need to recognize how helplessly for these 
nine remaining months, we are in the clutch of a league of criminals; 
and to iddresi ourselves soberly and resolutely to the little that it 
left for us to do. 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 7 

I. 

What, then, in the first place, is the crime that has awakened 
your just and righteous anger? It concerns the question, what sort 
of persons should be intrusted with the business, so necessary, so 
indispensable, but, when abused, so fraught with unnameable, in- 
calculable mischiefs, to person and property, to body, mind and 
soul, to individual, to family, to church and to society — the business 
of selling alcoholic liquors. Concerning this question, there is really 
no radical, serious difference of opinion, I do not say among reform- 
ers, among temperance men, among Christians, but among decent, 
honest citizens. There is substantial unanimity on this point, not 
only among the people of this town and State, but among the people 
of all the States in the Union. In fact, I do not know of a nation 
in Christendom where the same principle which we hold is not 
accepted and acted on. It is everywhere known and felt that the 
selling of alcoholic liquors, however useful or even necessary it may 
be esteemed^ is so liable to abuse, and so enormously mischievous 
when abused, that it is not safe to intrust it to whoever chooses to 
engage in it. And so, under every civilized government, so far as 
my knowledge extends, precautions are taken to prevent unfit and 
untrustworthy persons from engaging in this business. I repeat it, 
there is no difference of opinion in Norwich, among decent people, 
on this point. The sharp issue that has been drawn here between 
two parties has not been upon this point. No man who passes for a 
decent member of society, so far as I know, has dared to propose to 
the people of Norwich that this business should be left open, like 
an}' other business, for any person to engage in without regard to 
his character and fitness. The controversy has been simply on the 
question, how this principle should be applied and put in operation — 
between those of us who contended for an extremely rigorous law 
limiting the business to persons distinctly appointed to transact it as 
agents of the town, and those (among whom were some of our best 
citizens) who were in favor of the less stringent course of limiting 
the business to persons who, after due and diligent inquiry into 
their suitableness for this trust, should be permitted to engage in it 
on their own account. That is the difference, and the whole differ- 
ence. One party is in favor of requiring alcoholic liquor to be sold 
by public officers; the other party is in favor of issuing permits to 
suitable persons, who shall be allowed to sell. It is not, as some 
people like to represent, a difference between prohibiting and not 



> A CBOOE AGAINST SOCIETY. 

prohibiting. Both parties arc In favor of prohibiting some things in 

this businos, and both parties are in favor of not prohibiting some 

things; and the question that divides us is, how to provide for the 

i that are not prohibited. Those that are in favor of requiring 

these sales by public agents call themselves prohibitionists. Those 
that are in favor of permitting these sales, in the hands of suitable 
mm, carefully selected and legally authorized, are called license 
men. And the latter party, which includes some of our best citi- 
. those most earnestly interested in the public morality and wel- 
fare, is this year largely in the majority. 

This, then, was the situation: These commissions of public trust, 
immeasurably the most important to the public interest that are con- 
ferred or held in this community, were to be given out, by authority 
of the law, to suitable persons, and to no others. 

And this is the crime: that these dangerous functions, in the 
guarding of which to the utmost from abuse are largely involved the 
peace, happiness, virtue and prosperity of this place, have been, in 
a multitude of cases, committed to the basest, vilest, most despicable 
wretches in the community, to criminals and convicts, to keepers of 
notorious houses of assignation and prostitution, and especially to 
to men— and to women — infamous in the police reports and in the 
dockets of the criminal courts, for the ruin and havoc they had 
made in the unlawful exercise of this very business, and for the 
knavish tricks by which they had sought to evade conviction and 
punishment. To the persons who by their notorious character and 
antecedents were known to be likely under this commission to 
accomplish the greatest possible mischief and to accomplish mischief 
only, the trust has been given out lavishly, recklessly. Recklessly, 
did I say? No, not recklessly. It has been done knowingly, intel- 
ligently, with the wicked intention to accomplish a wicked purpose, 
and with cool, mendacious and fraudulent contrivance of the neces- 
sary means the* t<>. 

This is the alleged crime. No man can successfully question the 
truth of the allegation. No honorable man will palliate the baseness 
of the act alleged. I shall have bv-and-by, when I come to the 
question who it is that has been guilty of this crime, to speak more 
in detail of the particular instances of it ; and with each new dis. 
will appear tO you more and more revolting. It seems to 
me (though I maybe mistaken through Ignorance of the course of 
things In other towns) that there Is a peculiar and exceptional tur- 
pitude in the guilt of it, which it would not be easy to parallel else- 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY, 9 

where. To be sure there have been instances in which (as in San 
Francisco and New York) a municipal government has fallen into 
the hands of undisguised criminals and been run in the interest of 
crime. But what has been done here has been done by men who 
claim to represent the honesty and respectability of the community. 
It has N been common enough for a law like ours to be administered 
in flagrant recklessness or ignorance ; but there has been no ignor- 
ance or recklessness here ; on the contrary, there has been guilty 
knowledge and forethought. It is a common scandal, the winking 
at crime on the part of those who ought to detect and punish it ; but 
I can hardly believe it to be common for the authorities of our towns 
to signalize the leading criminals of the place — kno^n and marked 
as such by the branding of universal notoriety, and by the ear-crop- 
ping of judicial conviction — as persons to be distinguished by official 
favor, and to be equipped by the public authorities with the very 
tools and facilities t>f tbeir crime. There are instances enough, — 
we read of them with virtuous horror, and wash our hands in inno- 
cency — of great towns in which vice abounds, and in which, despair- 
ing of extirpating the pest of houses of prostitution, they have 
ended by tolerating them under rigorous conditions that may in some 
degree restrict their power of mischief. We are shocked, and justly, 
as we read of Paris and Vienna, and St. Louis; but it has been 
reserved, so far as I know, for Norwich, for fair, rural Norwich, to 
take the keepers of its notorious brothels, without conditions, with- 
out police inspection — its brothels, just as they are, with all their 
hidden horrors, with all their infestations of theft, robbery, abduc- 
tion and other crime, with all their corruption and putrefaction of 
disease — to take its brothel-keepers into the personal confidence of 
the town-officers, to fortify them with recommendations and vouch- 
ers of character, and so to procure for them a commission in the 
name of the State, which should serve them, and was expected and 
intended to serve them, as a permit to entice in their victims from 
the street, and ply them with the debaucheries of the bar-room, as a 
preparation and incitement to the filthier debaucheries to which the 
back-door of the bar-room leads. And, crowning shame and horror 
of the whole! — this monstrous public crime is committed in the 
name of the Town of Norwich, by its elected officers, and under the 
false, odious, calumnious pretense that it is in accordance with the 
express wish of us, the people. 



10 A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 

II. 

I come now to the second question which I had proposed to exam- 
ine. 1 haw exhibited the corpus delicti— the fact and body of the 
crime; I shall now push the inquiry, relentlessly, inexorably, let it 
strike where it will— the inquiry Who and What are the Criminals? 
Fellow-citizens, I have received advice, for the sincerity.and true 
friendliness of which I have a grateful respect, urging me, in what 
I may say this evening, to refrain from being personal. Gentlemen, 
I cannot, on my duty as a citizen, accept this advice. I must be 
personal. I shall be personal. I cannot, in this matter, be anything 
but personal, for ft is a personal matter. It would be very easy to 
deal with it as a wrong in the abstract, an ideal wrong; and I have 
no doubt that if I were to deal with it thus I should have the appro- 
bation of many persons, including some whose approbation I would 
rather not have. It would be very easy to deal with it in the spirit 
of a Bulletin "local item." "The carriage was smashed, and the 
baby was killed, and the mother had her arm broken, and the father 
was lamed for life, but no blame can be attached to the driver " 
[Laughter.] It would be very easy, and very useless. This is not 
at all one of those unfortunate accidents for which "no blame can 
be attached." It is not one of those "crimes in the abstract " which 
no one was ever known to commit. It is a very real, a very actual, 
a very personal crime indeed. Somebody has committed it, and it is 
necessary that the public should know who that " somebody " is. 
It is a very small and useless thing to expose the crime, unless we 
can also expose the criminal. And that I shall proceed to do. 
[Applause.] 

I am bound to do it, in justice to the incriminated parties them- 
selves. They have a right to demand that the public indignation 
contempt toward them shall be distinctly articulated in definite 
charges, responsibly set forth, to give them an opportunity, not of 
:ise, for there is no defense possible, but of saying whatever 
can find to say in mitigation of the public judgment. When I 
bring them face to face with these charges which ought to disgrace 
In the eves of their fellow-citizens, I am only doing 
what, in like case, I would like that men should do unto me. If any 
anything against me, I want him to say it out openly, 
\]y, definitely, In the very way in which I am about to speak re- 
Ling others. [Applause.] 
On the threshold of our inquiry wo encounter the question, 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY/ 11 

which, I doubt not, some here have been for some time aching to 
put : Have not the people of Norwich themselves, by their vote, 
approved, sanctioned, or authorized just these very acts, so that they 
are in complicity with, the crime, and primarily responsible and 
guilty? To which the answer is prompt, peremptory, absolute, in- 
dignant : No ! No ! and again, No ! and a thousand times, No ! Not 
once, by any sign or syllabic, have the people of Norwich done any 
thing to involve themselves in the slightest degree with this hideous 
iniquity. The allegation of it is a convenient invention to relieve 
the conscience or character of the guilty party, but it is false; it is 
without the shadow of foundation ; it is a calumny upon the people 
of this town. 

Feliow-citizens; you and I have not been long acquainted ; but you 
know r me well enough, I think, to know that if I believed you guilty, 
as this assertion declares. I would not spare to tell you so to your 
face. [Applause.] But, thank God! this disgrace has never 
stained the fame of the beautiful city which I delight to call my 
home. "What the people declared on this point, so far as they de- 
clared themselves at all, by the election of last fall, was the very 
opposite of this. "When they voted that the License Law should be 
put in force, they declared their will that suitable persons, and none 
but suitable persons, should be either nominated or confirmed for 
license. They expressed no desire that this grave and perilous trust 
should be conferred on criminals and convicts, on brothel-keepers 
and debauchers of children. And to give emphasis to their will, 
they appointed at the same election, to have control over this busi- 
ness, with legal authority to nominate suitable persons, but with no 
authority of any kind to nominate any unsuitable person — men 
whose names, it was fondly believed, were a guarantee of faithful- 
ness to a public trust, and especially to the trust of protecting the 
town from this very infamy and misery that has now befallen it. 
How absurd, how monstrous, to say that if the people had wanted 
this dirty job done, they would have put it into the absolute power 
of such selectmen to prevent it! No! take back that lie! the people 
of Norwich did not ask for this crime. They have no share in the 
guilt of it. [Applause.] 

It is hi^h time, at length, that we come to the real criminal. We 
must delay no longer to drag out before you, and hold up, in the 
fierce light of your indignant scorn, the name hitherto honorable, 
henceforth infamous, of the miserable man who has taken upon his 
soul the guilt of this abominable crime. The name of the ringleader 



12 a CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY, 

— the foremost responsible, guilty actor In this deed of shame — the 
Hum by whose perfidy, whose Becrecy and stealth, whose breach of 

Bolema promise, Whose flagrant falsehood, under Ins own official 
signature, it has mainly been done — his name is * * * * wait 
a moment and listen to this document: 

STATE OF CONNECTICUT, ) 

Town of Norwich, [- as. 

County of New London. ) 

fyherpas, William M. Green lias applied to the Board of Commis- 
sioners of this County for a license to sell spirituous and intoxicating 
liquors, ale, lager beer and Rhine wine, at No. 3 Ferry street, in this 
County; and a copy of said application has been lodged and kept 
on tile with the Town Clerk of this Town, subject to public inspect 
tion, at least two weeks prior hereto. 

Nov therefore, We, the undersigned, being a majority of the 
Board of Selectmen of said Town, having made due inquiry and 
investigation in the matter, do hereby recommend the said William 
M. Green to said Board of Commissioners as a suitable and fit per- 
son to be licensed for said purpose. 0. P. AVERY. 

I pause there for the present, although that is not the whole of it; 
and I put this document in evidenee, in the impeachment of Oliver 
P. Avery for malfeasance in office, before the people of Norwich, 
who have highly trusted him, and whom, in violation of his duty 
before the Most High God, he has betrayed and outraged. 

Who is this William M. Green? and what is No. 3 Ferry street? 
To ask these questions anywhere in Norwich is to answer them. 
The sickening stench of this man's reputation poisons the air of the 
whole town, and infects the surrounding country. It creeps into 
our houses like a sewer-gas. His name is whispered from mouth to 
eiir when it would be an offence against decency to speak it aloud, 
and wherever it is uttered it spreads contamination. 

A nd what is No. 3 Ferry street? It is a house of widely-extended 

fame It is not a house of good fame. It is a house of ill-fame. 

known to distant newspapers, and to County Commissioners, as 

the bouse from Whose Stock the steamer Ella was equipped, last 

■ nor, with her corps of prostitutes.* It is known to people gen- 

•Th<- Norwich oorreepondeni of theN< w Haves RegUA&r* August 8, 1S79, pavetho 

I tli unlawf ul excursions of this steamboat Of ill-fame. 

The hi. fcrnthof the < not depend on this testimony alone, but 

■ I by other witueBseB: "A ]<■ rf ectly honorable end unprejudiced gentleman 

of toil i ipanled by hla wife, vmob b >erd the boat, pupuoalng that the excur. 

: o the day. or In my event thai the officerHof 

* • . : • •' ..• kawandord I, ITe Hays tliat long before tbe learner 

I h. r wharf in tl was h'arli'v MhaOK 'I Of the conipanv in wlr'eh lie 

found biniaelf, and on lioacoonnt ironizc the craft with h i pre cut 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 13 

erally as they pass it — the whited sepulchre, full within of all unclean- 
liness. It is distinguished by its admirable position for business, close 
upon the only sidewalk by which the East Side Depot can be reached, 
so that your wives and your daughters are compelled to step almost 
upon its threshold, and so that its ambush commands the path of 
every country boy as he comes to the city, or departs, by that rail- 
road. O, a very important institution is No. 3 Ferry Street, and 
very well known indeed. One of the law-officers of the town declares 
that it is not any better understood that Adin Cook's is a grocery, 
than that No. 3 Ferry Street is a brothel'. One drawback only it has 
labored under. It needed some excuse for keeping an open shop- 
front for enticing in its victims; and Mr. Oliver P. Avery has done 
all that he honestly could, and some things that he could not do 
without foul dishonor, to secure this brothel in its position, and give 
it every needed facility for business. 

But Mr. Oliver P. Avery did not know about this. He could not 
have known; for such a man as Oliver P. Avery never would have 
done this shameful thing knowingly, would he? I put it to you that 
know him, — would he have done it? Nay, I am sure he did not 
know anything about the bad character of this man and his house, 
for lie told me so himself. [Laughter.] He saw me in the Post Office 
one day when the case of Green was pending before the County 
Commissioners, and came up to me uneasily to explain that this 
whole matter was a surprise to him — that up to that time he had 
never heard anything to the disparagement of Mr. Green or of his 
house: [Laughter,] And he is quite a near neighbor, too. He 
actually told me that. And I believed him, then; I really did! 

O, I grow sick and weary often, — and who of us does not? — of 
this ever-renewing, never-ending story of deceit, and drunkenness, 
and corruption, and adultery, and murder, with which the very air 
about us seems reeking; and I wish that I might hide myself from 

management on a Sunday excursion. Drunkenness and disorder were quickly visib'.e 
on board, in the old men as well as the young, and a general hilarity seemed to be dif- 
fused among the party. No liquor was sold on the boat, but the thirsty passengers 
were frequently seen cooling their tongues with hearty draughts from capacions pock- 
et flasks. A company of women from a house near the Norwich & Worcester depot 
(of which some of the 'fathers' have testified that it is a 'quiet and orderly place'), 
wore -olong and during the day became so exhilarated that one of them had to be 
led off the boat on her return to this city. The bathing scenes and conduct of this 
party while at the Hill are also said to have been scandalous.'' 

It is in accordance with the fitness of things that the signature of that officer of 
the steamboat company, who was most noted in 1879 for defying and insulting the 
laws of the State, should in 1880 be decorating the license lhat hangs hi the 
" saloon " of that establishment, to which the excursions of his steamboat were in- 
debted for their most conspicuous attraction. 



14 A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 

>unds ami rumors and suspicious that are blown about on every 
breeze, ill some sequestered cell within whose peaceful walla no 
word or thought of ill could ever penetrate; or in 

" a lodge ID some vast wilderness, 

Where rumors of corruption and deceit 
Could never reach the ear," 

where one might dwell in peace and calm, feeding upon sw r eet, char- 
itable thoughts, and dreaming fondly that all men were pure. And 
lo, at last I have found the very spot, where one would have least 
thought to find it — in the southeast corner of the City Hall, the 
Selectmen's office. [Laughter and applause.] All around, in Police 
Office, and City Court, and Superior Court, and lock-up, may be 
heard the tones of strife and wrong, but not within that partition. 

" Against those hallowed walls, the storm 
Of earth-born passion dies " 

Enter; you breathe a charmed air, for all this atmosphere is love 
and unsuspecting purity. These venerable forms are the Select 
Men, [Laughter] the choice elect spirits of our age whose virgin 
purity no thought or suggestion of evil ever comes near enough to 
tarnish. [Laughter.] And supreme among them, selectcst of the 
select, sits Oliver P. Avery, as Charity incarnate, thinking no evil and 
believing all things, [constant interruptions of laughter,] swaying his 
peaceful sceptre and with the guileness of a little child dispensing 
liquor-licenses to William If. Green and Patrick Shea. [Long 
laughter.] 

For Mr. Avery had never heard a syllable lisped against the char- 
acter of Mr. Green — he told me he never had. It is the finest in- 
stance in history to show 

" how awful goodness is, 
And virtue in her shape how lovely." 

The town-talk might be of the debauchery at Shea's place, or of the 
it Green's. But none dared allude to such a subject within 
emrthol of Avery. The crowd at the street-corner would pause in 
the middle of an anecdote, as he approached, and say "Hush — sli 
— fthl hen \very!" [Laughter.] And so he never heard any 

thing against William M. Green. [Prolonged laughter.] 

In fact he took paint, And resorted to stratagems, I must say it, — 
to dishonest itratAgemt, to avoid hearing Anything against any appli- 
cant for Heeaae. While the applications were piling up for two 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 15 

weeks at the Town Clerk's Office, I went again and again to the 
Selectmen to ask a hearing on the character of these applicants, and 
was always encouraged to expect it. Others went on the same busi- 
ness, and received a distinct, definite promise that no recommenda- 
tions for license would be made until we had been notified so that 
we might present our objections. "We trusted in this promise, and 
waited, and waited, and the next news that we had was that the 
recommendations were in the hands of the commissioners, signed by 
the Selectmen. And that is one more way in which it happened that 
Mr. O. P. Avery had never heard anything against Mr. Green, or 
Mr. Gordon, or Mr. Shea, or Mr. Bouchard, or Mrs. Delanoy, or Mr 
Moriarty, or the rest. 

This also is a thing which Mr. Avery seemed to think required 
explanation, the, day that he found me in the Post Office. And I 
feel bound to give him the full benefit of his explanation in his own 
words, as nearly as I can remember them. It was this: that the 
promise which was given in the name of the Selectmen was given 
by Mr. Willoughby, "and Willoughby, you know, is nothing but an 
old fiddle-faddle, anyway." [Roars of laughter.] 

But Mr. Avery inquired about Green; and not only inquired but 
investigated ; he says so distinctly, under his official signature. And 
it was after due inquiry, and investigation, that he found him suit- 
able for this public trust. Mr. Avery, Mr. Avery, the public have a 
right to know something about this matter. Tell us, if you please, 
Where did you inquire about the character of Green? Did you step 
out of your office door and down to the foot of the stairs, and ask of 
the police what their perfectly distinct understanding is about the 
character of Green's house? Did }'ou ask of the practising lawyers 
and prosecuting attorneys of this city and county whether Green's 
house was known in incidental connection with criminal or divorce 
proceedings, or look up the nameless story that is in circulation — 
what name it involves I do not know — about a } r oung business man 
ruined by one of the she-devils that are harbored there? Did it occur 
to you to go to Mr. Montgomery, (a very natural person to go to,) to 
get the exact facts of the horrible story of a }*oung girl from the 
country, a mere child of sixteen, held captive in that den of infamy, 
to be prostituted to Mr. Green's customers ? Did you inquire of 
employers of labor in that neighborhood whether they had had any 
trouble in consequence of their employees' being enticed into Green's 
house and debauched ? Did you go to the principal physicians of the 
city, and ask how many patients in a month come to them rotting with 



IT, A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 

I disease that La itself :i crime. Which they declare to have been con- 
tractedat the bouse of Green ! 1 have not inquired of the physicians 

bu t physicians have told me, for I too am a physician, and it is no breach 
of professional confidence when I, without mentioning names, declare 
thifl to be a fact Did you look in any of these places, or inquire and 
investigate in any of these directions ? If not, where did you inquire, 
and where did you investigate ? And what were the good qualities 
which you found in William M. Green to render him suitable for 
this public trust ? Or were } r ou, perhaps, satisfied at once with the 
sight of his honest, benevolent face, with his prepossessing appear- 
ance, and with the charms of his conversation ? [Loud laughter.] 

But no, you were not satisfied with mere surface virtues, you 
inquired ; and not only inquired, but investigated. You said you 
did. When ? Where ? How, did you investigate ? Do you remem- 
ber, Mr. Avery, that I asked you this question that day that you came 
to me in the Post Office and wanted to explain ? You told me that you 
had not inquired at all, that you knew nothing about the man. 
"Then," said I, '• that paper was what some people would call a — a 
legal fiction?" "Yes," you answered, "that was the way all of 
them read." A "legal fiction!" That is a technical term. Can you 
tell me the English for it ? 

I think I never knew a man confess more calmly to a deliberate 
and mischievous — "legal fiction " than he did then and there. But 
I must do him the justice to say that he did not look as if he was 
proud of it. 

Xow I cannot go on through the list of known, notorious crim- 
inals in whose case, Mr, Avery, you repeated this wilful and wicked 
hood. This case of Green was not, in all respects, the worst. 
The cases of Pat Shea and John Keough, for instance, under actual 
iction for debauching children, are worse in this, that you had 
the record of the court within your reach, and could not plead any 
uncertainty about them. In fact, as we pass from name to name 
amonLr the criminals whom you have distinguished with your favor, 
it Lb hard to say which is the worst, when each has some peculiar 
vilmess. It docs seem, indeed, as if you had "inquired and inves- 
:f you had dragged the sewers with a seine to fish up 
the filthiest human creatures that could be found wallowing in that 
I do not charge that you have. I only say that if you had, 
WOUld have fished up many of the same persons. 
' me not fail to give this perfidious man the benefit of every 
point lefense. He did not, he claims, give his approval to 






A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 17 

• 
every applicant. So I have heard. I am told, on good authority, 
that when the list was first presented by the Selectmen to a certain 
County Commissioner who is not charged by his worst enemy with 
any sentimental scruples, or any morbid delicacy of stomach on 
moral questions^the Commissioner glanced at certain names and ex- 
claimed with surprise, "you don't really mean to send us those 
names, do }-ou? " — and gave back the list again; and when it got 
back a second time to the Commissioners, some names were dropped. 
The mess which had been stirred up by the Temperance Selectmen 
actually turned the stomach of— a certain County Commissioner! 
TTe give Mr. Avery the benefit of his plea — that he kept back some 
names. But what! what, in the name of vice, crime and immoral- 
ity, could those names be which he didn't approve. [Laughter.] 

But he says that the pressure of applications 'was great, and he 
could not discriminate. But he did discriminate. He boasts that 
he did. And I know that he did. He left out poor Isabella Nord- 
heim, the friend of Mr. Calvin Rawson, who does not hesitate to 
countersign with his respectable autograph over against her chaste 
signature — I beg pardon, " her mark" — and to risk a thousand dol- 
lars on his confidence in her correct conduct under the law ; a touch- 
ing proof of unselfish regard on Mr. Rawson's part! And yet, after 
this palpable favoritism in preferring Mr. Green, and Mr. Gordon, 
and Mrs. Delanoy, to poor slighted Mrs. Nordheim, Mr. Avery has 
the assurance to come before the public, per alium, in the Bulletin, 
and plead that he " could not discriminate! " 

And finally, there is this most extraordinary plea in mitigation of 
sentence that was ever offered by a convicted criminal — that Mr. 
Avery did not like this business of licensing criminals. He was an 
earnest friend of temperance and morals, and he did not want to do 
it. He would not do it for "fifty dollars." [Laughter.] Fifty? No, 
he was quite sure he would not be willing to do it for ffty dollars. 

This protestation of incorruptible virtue brings to mind an inci- 
dent in the early life of that eminent citizen and financier, the late 
James Fisk, Jr., of New York. He had started out on a peddling 
expedition, over a route which had formerly been traveled by his 
father on the same business. At one of the houses where he stop- 
ped, the lady of the house, when he gave his name, looked him 
sharply him in the face and asked, " Ain't you a son of that lying 
old Fisk that used to come this way peddling? He'd tell a lie any 
time for a York shilling." 

" Madam," replied the young man, with dignity, "you wrong that 



L8 A OBDII acaixst SOCIETY. 

: old man. He it my father, and I know that lie would not tell 
a lie tor a shilling. But 1 think that perhaps he might tell eight of 
them for a dollar." [Laughter.] 

To Mr. Avery a small retail transaction in this infamy had no at- 
tractions. It was only when the vile deeds were to be done by 
dozens and scores at once, that he became accessible to temptation. 

I believe him in all that he says on this point. lie does speak the 
truth, frequently; [Laughter.] and I believe that he is speaking the 
truth in this. He did not want to do this vile work. But he did it. 

So Herod did not want to murder John the Baptist. He would 
rather have given, not " fifty dollars, H but the half of his kingdom, 
than to do it. But he did it. 

And Pontius Pilate did not want to crucify the Lord of glory. 
He tried several expedients to avoid the necessity of it. But he 
did it. 

And Judas Iscariot would not betray his Master for twenty-nine 
pieces of silver. But he did it for thirty. 

And so Oliver P. Avery did not want to betray his town into the 
power of its worst criminals. He saw r the wickedness of this and 
loathed it. He wouldn't do it for — well, no, not for " fifty dollars." 
[Laughter.] But he did it. 

Mr. Aver} r , what would you do it for? Mr. Avery, what did you 
do it for? For you did do it. 

Don't mistake me, fellow r -citizens. I am not insinuating that 
this man has been paid for his dirty work in cash. I do not believe 
it at all. I do not suppose he could be corrupted in that way. 
What the inducement was that overcame his reluctance I have no 
idea or suspicion. I only know what he tells us, that he considered 
it was worth more than "fifty dollars. " [Laughter.] Perhaps it 
was to give a score or two of poor wretches a chance to make a liv- 
ing by impoverishing their neighbors. Perhaps it w r as to save the 
Republican Party. Perhaps it was to provoke a reaction against the 
Licence Law. How Satan tempted him, I do not know. Only he 
tempted and he fell. Under the shadow of this great disgrace, 
under the consciousness of this great crime, let him go on through 
declining years, poor, poor old man, not with the contempt, only, 
of his fellow-citizens, but with their pity, and with some kindly re- 
membrance of the better things that he has done. False as he has 

basely as ))'• baa betrayed his town into the hands 
remember how Kong and well he served it until that 
evil hour, and walk back and cover the old man';; shame with the 
mantle of a charitable oblivion 






A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 19 

Another name of the signers of the recommendation of William 
M. Green as a suitable man for this public trust is the name of Cap- 
tain Potter. Like Mr. Avery, Captain Potter is a strong 
Temperance man. He is a very zealous, extreme, radical 
Temperance man — a prohibitionist. He was nominated as such, 
I am assured, and elected as such. Good citizens voted 
to give the Selectmen the power of nominating for. license, 
feeling that this power would be safe from abuse in such hands as 
Captain Potter's. When the License vote was passed, people said, 
"Captain Potter will have no hand in any wrong-doing under this 
law." When the horrible doings of the Board of Selectmen trans- 
pired to the public knowledge, people said to me, "I think you will 
find that Captain Potter has had no hand in this dirty business/ 
Fellow-citizens, from the beginning of this dirty business, so far as 
I am able to discover, Captain Potter has had his hand, has had 
both his hands, up to the wrists, up to the elbows, up to the should- 
ers, in the very nastiest of it. [Loud laughter.] 

And Captain Potter, too, seems to feel that he needs an apology, 
and he shall have the full benefit of it. And this is his apology 

Captain Potter {interrupting). I never made an apology; I have 
no apology to make for anything I have done about this business. 

Mil. Bacon I wish to give Captain Potter every possible oppor- 
tunity for correcting any statement I may make. I accept his 
correction. This, then, is what I understood to be his apology, as 
he delivered it to me himself, in the room of the Selectmen at the 
City Hall, before his crime was yet consummated: That selling 
liquor is a mean, low-lived business, and therefore when he recom- 
mended a suitable man for it, he ought to recommend a mean, low- 
lived fellow. He actually 

Captain Potter: That does not give a true impression at all. 
What I said was that "some people said that a suitable man for 
license was a mean, low-lived fellow." 

Mr. Bacon: I thank Captain Potter for the correction, which I 
accept for what it is worth. I beg that he will come up on the 
platform, and feel free to make any further correction or reply that 
he may wish to make before this audience; and I trust, fellow-citi- 
zens, that you will give him a fair and patient hearing. 

Captain Potter signified that he would wait until the close of 
the address before saying more. 

Mr. Bacon: This, then, as amended by himself, is what he 
delivered to me in such a way that I understood it to be his defense 



A CBDCB AGAINST SOCIETY, 

or apology far doing the very thing that he ftas doing, and which 

iu> people said" ii was right to do. He actually repealed this stale 

temperance-meeting Joke with a grave face, as if lie seriously 

accepted it as a rule of duty. And I don't know but he really and 
Sincerely did. I am willing to make every concession which the 
largest charity requires, and admit, what his apology implies (if it 
Is his apology — and you will observe that he has not yet denied, and 
do! deny, that it is his sentiment), I am willing to admit that 
he is the honest, dull-minded fanatic that he thereby claims to be: — 
that he has so muddled himself with the intoxicating extravagances 
of prohibitionist orators, that he has become incapable of seeing any 
moral difference between licensing a druggist and licensing a tip- 
pling-house or a brothel. And so he stigmatizes as "mean and 
low-lived" the very business which the temperance men of Norwich, 
a year ago, moved heaven and earth and the Connecticut Legislature 
to set on foot, when they made Follett and Dearden town-agents, 
and made us all -Montgomery, Chamberlain and all the rest of us 
that have taxes to pay — shareholders in the profits of a retail liquor- 
shop. For that, you understand, is wdiat we mean by Prohibition. 
[Applause.] The License-law provides that certain suitable persons 
— fit to be trusted with so hazardous an occupation — may, under 
great precautions, receive permits to engage in this business on their 
own account. The No-License plan contemplates that we all go 
into the liquor-business together, on joint account, through our 
town-agents, and divide the profits or losses at the end of the year. 
And which of these ways of regulating the liquor-business is most 
live of good results to society, is very earnestly and sometimes 
acrimoniously debated among good citizens. And it is this very 
is it? — which was instituted here by the most energetic 
exertions of the leaders of the Prohibition cause, which you declare 
(if I understand you) to be a mean, low-lived business, for which no 
one is "suitable" but a mean, low-lived fellow; and you recommend 
hut "suitable" men. Well, there is one aspect of the case, 
.in Potter, that I don't care? to discuss with you. You may 
- it with the parties interested; for it strikes me that you have 
opened an account of some magnitude with Colonel Hugh Osgood 

l£r. Douglass Sevin*, and that you will do well to be asking 

Mr, Shields what you had better say to them when they call you to 
ant for defamation of character. [Laughter.] 

•Two respectable druggists of Norwich. 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 21 

Now, of course, we know what Captain Potter and all such 
muddle-headed people will answer to this. They will say at once, 
"We don't mean to speak against decent and respectable shops that 
want a license in order to sell to proper persons and for proper uses. 
What we object to is those fountains of vice and misery, grog-shops 
and bar-rooms." Then what do } r ou license grog-shops and bar- 
rooms for? Do you say that the License-law requires it?' Not in 
any line or letter! The whole history of the License-law, as well as 
every word of its text, shows that it was meant to prevent this very 
thing — the opening of fountains of vice— of grog-shops and bar- 
rooms. Who asked you to cover the face of this fair town with 
these infamous resorts? The people of Norwich? No! By a vast 
majority they clothed you with absolute power to prevent it. In 
doing it you have acted not according to law T , but in violation of the 
law, and have not fulfilled, but broken, the people's trust. [Cheer- 
ing and cries of Good! good!] 

But I want to give Mr. Potter the entire benefit of his excuse, for 
I still understand it to be his only excuse. He holds that the selling 
of alcoholic liquors is a mean and low-lived business, and that it 
takes a mean and low-lived fellow to perform it. It follows, of 
course, that the recommending of such fellows for license is a mean 
and low-lived transaction, and that it requires a mean and low-lived 
Selectman to do that [Laughter.] "Logic is logic, that's all I 
say." And do we not understand that these two highly moral and 
prohibitionist Selectmen, whose zeal for righteousness quite puts to 
shame our lukewarmness, frankly accept this situation: " The 
whole license business is wicked, base, mean, dishonorable, — no 
decent or honorable man will touch it with one of his fingers; — but 
if you will have it done, we have not the slightest objection to doing 
it for you." Is not this the position of these "temperance" Select- 
men? I have never heard of their standing up indignantly when it 
was proposed to make them the instruments of conferring licenses, 
and declaring, "We will resign our offices before we will touch this 
accursed business." O no! nothing of the kind! They only said: 
this is base — monstrously base and wicked business, this giving of li- 
censes ; but if you want it done we will do it for you. I do not pretend 
to know, but it hardly seems probable to me that you could find a pair 
of half-decent local Democratic politicians, who would not have been 
above doing the things that have just been done by these two emi- 
nent Prohibitionists. [Applause.] It is a lesson to me, as long as I 
live, never, by any word or vote of mine, to aid in placing such 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 

besotted Prohibitionist fanatics in a position which they can pos- 
sibly betray to the enemies of society. [Applause.] 

. ro Ifl no need of Baying anything about. Mr. Willoughby. 
[Laughter.] So far as I have observed, he has never showed (as the 
others have) the slightest shame for his acts, or the slightest glimpse 
osciousness that there was anything wrong in them. I do not 
know Mr. Willoughby. Mr. Avery does know him well, and sums 
up b4s intellectual qualities in these words: " Willoughby is nothing 
but an old fiddle-faddle, anyway." [Continued shouts of laughter.] 
Don't let us be too hard on Mr. Willoughby. Only he has not quite 
the stuff to make a Selectman of; and I do hope that when the next 
town election approaches, some of you will speak to the gentleman, 
whoever it is, that packs your caucuses for you — and by the way, 
perhaps some of ynu can tell me who does the caucus-packing for 
this town [Voices: " Greene; Paul B. Greene," and laughter,] Well, 
whoever it is, I hope some of you will go to him and ask him to 
phase not make up the next Board of Selectmen out of a traitor, and 
a fanatic, and an "old fiddle-faddle." [Applause."] 

We have now dispatched the case of the principal criminals. By 
their faithlessness and fraud the first and most difficult step in this 
course of wrong had been successfully achieved without interruption 
or question. We prepared now, under immense disadvantages, to 
follow the matter up to the bar of the County Commissioners. I 
stood there alone, with my counsel ; and how I happened to be 
alone, gentlemen of the Reform club, I leave it to you to explain. 
[Applause.] I was utterly inexperienced in such business, and, being 
a new-comer, was unacquainted with the antecedents of the criminals 
who tii rouged the room waiting to be set up in business. The bur- 
den of proof, we felt, rested justly upon us, under the immense pre- 
sumption created by that sheaf of documents from the Selectmen, 

tnnly declaring, under their individual signatures, that they had 

inquired and investigated in every case, and knew the applicant to 

orthy. We were required to furnish proof that would have 

I sufiicient to convict in a criminal court, and we had no power 
t i summon witnesses, nor to put the applicants under oath. We 
could only appeal to the public, to come forward with testimony; 
and not one syllable was I allowed to say to the public through the 
Bulletin, in this d< p< rate struggle to save the town of Norwich from 
the I 'amity and disgrace,-" not one syllable was I allowed 

■mmunif ate to the public through the BuUcHn, except by paying 
for it out of my own pocket, nt full advertising rates. It was not 






A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 23 

to be hoped for that we should be able to accomplish anything at all, 
at such disadvantage. But it seemed a duty to try. Our one hope 
was this: people told us that among the County Commissioners were 
two honest, upright, conscientious men, men who were not open, 
defiant impudent violators of law; men who were something supe- 
rior to the mere caucus-packing, trading politician; men who were 
not open scoffers at the very idea of righteousness, and high loyalty 
to God; men who would regard their official duty not as a mere mat- 
ter of signing papers and drawing fees, but as a matter of conscience; 
men, especially, who were distinguished by their earnest, faithful, 
consistent activity for the promotion of Temperance and morality. 
And which two, out of the entire list of County Commissioners, 
these were, I am not going to tell you, for I regard the communica- 
tion as quasi-confidential.* But we felt that with two such men 
before us, there was some chance. 

Ah, me! I find myself beginning to grow weary of these men of 
very lofty and superior principles so devoted, to public morals and 
the cause of Temperance that they are even willing, when urged, 
to run for office on that ticket. I almost feel, as I think of the 
course this business has taken, as if I liked the other kind better. 
They, at least, cannot betray us. 

Presently there appeared in the County Commissioners' Room, 
that unspeakable creature Green — I mean William M. Green, don't 
misunderstand me, [loud laughter] and the endorsement of his 
worthiness was presented. His notorious character was exhibited 
under oath of several witnesses, and notwithstanding all his ser- 
vices to the steamer Ella, his application was rejected, and Norwich 
breathed more freely. 

Another case was that of Pat Shea, of Taftaville. He was a con- 
vict, but convictions passed for very little in that peculiar court. It 
so happened, however, that we were able to bring into court, by 
their own consent, the witnesses to one of Shea's most loathsome 
outrages. The poor child whom he had debauched and sent home 
dead drunk to his father and mother, w T ho were perplexed and terri- 
fied, never dreaming how much worse a thing than deadly sickness 
had befallen their boy; and the father nobly willing to relate the 
shame of his household, if so he might save other homes from the 
like— they were both there. They told their story; there was no 
denying or resisting it. Before our case w r as closed, to save the call- 

* Tbf! Commissioners of New London County for the current term, nera Messrs. 
P:..;l iJ. Greene, of Norwich. Stevens, of New London, and Gter. of Lebanon. 



24 V CRIME A( "i A INST SOCIETY. 

Ing of farther witnesses, the Commissioners gave in\o our hands 
irrittcn promts, thai Shea should not be licensed; and Taftville 
was a happier Tillage that night. 

Thia was early in November. A week or two ago, it began to be 

remarked by citizens that Green and Shea seemed to be doing busi- 
in. On inquiry it appeared that they had both of them had 
their licenses for a considerable time. At some opportune moment, 
when every one's back was turned, the upright and conscientious 
Commissioners who had but just now given their written promise 
not to do that wicked thing, seized their occasion and did it. And 
the fact was kept out of the newspaper " by inadvertence!''* [Laugh- 
ter.] Yes, " inadvertence! " Who arranged the "inadvertence" 
we are not informed. The County Commissioners, it may be pre- 
sumed. I am sure it was not Mr. Pierson (the Bulletin reporter), 
for he always does his best to get the news. But somebody contrived 
an " inadvertence" for keeping it out of the papers. 

And now for the sequel of this act. Last Tuesday I met the 
pastor of the church in Taftville, w T ho told me an incident in his 
recent pastoral experience. The last Sunday but one before that, 
there had been received to the communion of his church a simple- 
minded person, not very intelligent, but one who did seem, to the 
judgment of those who spoke with him, to be an honest, peni- 
tent believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to desire the help of 
Christian fellowship to aid him in the right way; and so they re- 
ceived him to the communion of the Lord's supper. And the very 
next Sunday, that is to say, a week ago last Sunday, he was got into 
Pat Shea's shop, and sent back to the evening meeting of his church, 
drunk. And this is the work of Mr. Oliver P. Avery and of Cap- 
tain Potter! • 

Captain Potter 1 when you go home to-night from this meeting, 
and when, before you go to bed, you take down that good book 
which J do not doubt, that it is your habit to consult, find that passage 
in which Jesus Christ declares "whoso shall cause to stumble one of 
i little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a 
millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in 
the depth of the; sea:" [A solemn silence.] 

A : 'A. Shea is on his defense before the County Commis- 

i the ehnrL r e of having broken the law and SO forfeited his 

license. T am a little diffident about SUggC8ting a line of defense to 

|y compete tleman as he has retailed for his lawyer. 

M: She-id- I h' re, and I believe lie is— he said he wasgoing 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 25 

to be, though 1 warned him of the possible consequences — I would 
like to suggest this as a competent line of defense : That Patrick 
Shea was nominated and appointed to sell intoxicating liquors with 
the distinct understanding and expectation, on the part both of the 
Selectmen and of the County Commissioners, that he was to go on 
and do the very thing which they knew that he had always been 
doing, and that it would be gross injustice on their part to interfere 
with him for carrying out their implied instructions. This, if I 
may be allowed to suggest, would be a very pretty line of defense to 
take up. 

Another act of these two bodies of zealous prohibitionist offici- 
als is interesting in various ways, and among others for its connect- 
ion with Bean Hill. That beautiful rural region, a lovely specimen 
of that fairest form of human habitation upon earth, the New Eng- 
land country village, is notoriously tyrannized and terrorized by a 
gang of ruffians connected with the grog-shops of the place. The 
inhabtants of it groan under the intolerable affliction, but do not 
dare to remonstrate openly, out of terror for person and property — 
the burning of their barns, and assaults at night upon the public 
streets. If }'ou want facts to prove this, I can give them to you. 
The acknowledged ringleader of this mischief was John Keough; 
and prompt and early among the list of applicants for license, John 
Keough's name appeared. The remainder of the story of John 
Keough, I will read you from a memorandum furnished me by Mr. 
Ripley, the City Attorney. 

Last Spring, John Keough, a grocery dealer at Bean Hill, was 
prosecuted for violation of the so-called "reputation-clause " of the 
liquor law. The city court found him guilty, and imposed the full 
pecuniary penalty ol the law. Keough appealed. His case was 
tried by a jury, at the June term, 1879. Keough is a man of prop- 
erty, and was most ably and ingeniously defended. The jury 
promptly returned a verdict of guilty. Keough had frequently been 
arrested for kindred offenses, and such gross and violent disturb- 
ances were proved to have arisen from the traffic at his place, that 
the Attorney for the State moved that he be sentenced to imprison- 
ment as well as fine. The Judge (Culver), without hesitation, passed 
sentence of thirty days in jail. Keough was committed, but was 
afterwards released pending a motion in error in his case which has 
not yet been determined; but this motion is founded on a pure tech- 
nicality. It does not suggest that the verdict was against evidence, 
or that the sentence was inappropriate. 

During the fall, and before the License vote, Keough was again 
arrested for selling to a minor. He appealed, and cut the State off 
from offering the most revolting evidence of a sale to a boy not 



86 A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 

thirteen yetn old. Tlie child was thrown into delirium by the 
liquor, and was found in an out-house in a demented condition. 
Wnilti in that condition Ibe child told the story of the sale, and was 
brutally assaulted by Keough's wife. 

Objection was made to Keough's license, before the County Com- 
missioners 

[Let mc say, by the way, that it was the City Attorney himself, 
the writer of this memorandum, who, to his great honor as a public 
officer, at no man's suggestion, but simply out of his interest in the 
public welfare, took it upon himself to present the objection.] 

and it was learned from them that no recom- 
mendation of Keough had come to them. From the Selectmen i« 
was learned that Keough's application had not been approved — that 
it had been rejected by reason of objections made by the citizens of 
his once quiet neighborhood. 

The above facts were then substantially stated to the First Select- 
man [Mr. Avery] and the objector reported to the County Commis- 
sioners that he was pleased to learn from the Selectmen that they 
would not be troubled with Keough's application. The objector 
knew nothing further of the matter until he learned from the public 
prints that Keough was licensed. [Cries of Shame!] 

O, you cry Shame at this! What will you say when you come to 
the next page of the story? I said that this memorandum of Mr. 
Ripley contained the remainder of the story of Keough. But it is 
not quite the whole of it. If we had not got quite beyond the possi- 
bility of being surprised by any revelation of wickeduess, cowardice 
and falsehood in this whole affair, you would be surprised at that 
which I am about to tell you, and which I learned this morning in 
the County Commissioners' Room, while waiting for Pat Shea's trial 
to begin. I learned it from the lips of Mr. County Commissioner 
Greene himself, that all the while that they were listening to these 
remonstrances and answering that there was no such name before 
them — all the while that the Selectmen were giving assurance that 
tkey had not recommended and would not recommend Keough's 
application — all the while that the Commissioners were accepting the 
Attorney's congratulations that they were not to be troubled by 
any such application,— all this while, the application of John Keough, 
DUnended by Ihe signatures of the Selectmen, was on file in the 
possession of the County Commissioners, to whom it had been sent 
up with the very first batch on the first day of November. 

In connection with the name of Keough, aslieen ed on the same 
day, January 12th, I happened to hear the Commissioners mention 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 27 

another name, that of John Gaines, and apropos of John Gaines, a 
friend has given me another memorandum that is of interest to us: 

John Gaines. Thomas Street, Licensed dealer, was licensed Janu- 
ary 12th [last Monday.] Was arrested on the 16th [last Friday] on 
complaint of his family, crazy drunk. On the 17th [last Saturday] 
was too wild to be presented for trial and was taken from the lock- 
up on the 17th for medical treatment as an extreme case of delirium 
tremens. 

And since I am about it, let me also read this little personal item 
which comes to me from an official pen : 

Stephen Moriarty, Licensed dealer, Greeneville. On the 15th 
in st. [last Thursday] was arrested crazy drunk, brandishing an axe 
in the street in front of his "saloon" where he had attracted a crowd 
of hundreds of spectators. On the 16th [last Friday] he was sen- 
tenced by the city court to twenty days in the jail. Appealed, gave 
bonds and was released. On the 17th [day before yesterday] the 
first scene was repeated, with exaggerated variations, and he is now 
in the lock-up with delirium tremens. His habits have been for 
years a great deal better known than those of the river by which he 
lives, and he has been " running down" a great deal faster. 

I am resolved that I will give to every man concerned in this 
chain of Crimes against Society the full benefit of any defense that 
be may choose to offer, or that his friends may choose to offer for 
him. The defense in the case of these two champions of temperance 
on the Board of County Commissioners is this: that they have 
changed their mind about their legal authority in the premises. They 
have taken counsel on the question, no doubt, in a quiet way, with 
some jurist learned in liquor cases, whose opinion outweighs entirely 
the clear, decided, unhesitating opinion of two such modest gentle- 
men as Judge Foster and Jeremiah Halsey, and they have changed 
their mind. 

"And hasn't a man a right to change his mind, I would like to 
know?" Well, yes; a man has a right to ehange his mind; and a 
woman too, they say. And that is just what we have done. We 
have changed our mind about some members of the Board of Select- 
men and about two highly moral and conscientious members of the 
Board of County Commissioners, whom we used to consider honest 
men ; only which two it is, I shall not venture to tell you. I have 
inquired with some interest which of these two men it is ttat has 
put his hand to those two documents for the licensing of William 
M. Green and of Patrick Shea; and I discover that for the distribu- 



88 A CRIKE AGAINST SOCIETY. 

tion of responsibility and for the ease of their consciences they have 
a g r ee d to divide the dirty work between them; and one takes the 
brothel, and the other the debaucher of children. 

III. 

A very few words will suffice, now, for the third and concluding 
part of this long discourse, in which I had proposed to consider 
what is our duty as good citizens — what ought to be done, and what 
can be done — in view of this crime against Society. 

For, first, gentlemen of the Reform Club, I do not feel at all 
sure that you wan Mo do anything. Do you? How is it? Are you 
not pretty well satisfied with the course things have been taking? 
Do you not take satisfaction in witnessing widespread demoralization 
and debauchery, as likely to bring about a reaction in favor of your 
pet law ? I do not know whether you feel so or not, but I do know 
that there are those who do. I have been shocked to hear this sen- 
timent coolly enunciated in this community by Christian men and 
Christian ministers. It is not only declared but acted on here 
amongst us. Christian men and ministers have given it as a reason 
for refusing aid to any effort to prevent the monstrous abuses which 
I have set before you, that they did not want to prevent them — that 
"the people had voted License, and they wanted that the people 
should get enough of it." They were calmly, in cold blood, willing 
to let debauchery and vice run riot for twelve months, delivering 
fortunes to bankruptcy, and families to misery and a broken heart, 
and bodies to disease and death, and souls to perdition, in hopes 
that it will have a favorable effect on the next election! Why, it is 
one of the stock arguments in favor of a "prohibitory" law — you 
may find it set down as sucli in Judge Pitman's book — that "tern- 
QCe men," as they call themselves, are resolved that they will 
give no aid nor countenance to the enforcement of a license-law. 
i ii is my simple belief that this notion lies somewhere down 
about the roots of this very crime that has been committed in this 
—the unwillingness of "temperance" politicians to see any 
I accomplished by any law except their own favorite. A hideous 
combination] a monstrous offspring got by Fanaticism out of Vice, 
this plot to make the existing law odious! Gentlemen prohibition- 
if this is your little game, to coerce the decent people of this 
town into supporting your prt project of legislation, by a Tile eoali- 
ireen church, grog-shop and brothel, I think we can promise 



A CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. 29 

you to see that your sinful little game is blocked. If there is going 
to be a confederacy between an Avery and a William M. Green, a 
Potter and a Delanoy, and a Shea, and a Mrs. Isabella Nordheim, 
w ith her friend and bondsman, Mr. Calvin G. Rawson [laughter] — 
if there is going to be "a covenant with death and an agreement 
with hell," we can assure you. on better authority than our own, 
that "your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your 
agreement with hell shall not stand;" for the overflowing indignation 
of honest men shall sweep away your refuge of lies and your covert 
of falsehood, and ye shall be trodden down by it. [Applause.] 

You think to make this License-Law odious — a perfectly right- 
eous and honest law, against which the only thing which can be 
justly urged is that you believe that another law is better; no man 
can lay his finger on any section or line of this law that authorizes 
any wrong, or aims at anything but public good. No party or coali- 
tion can make this law odious by thwarting it, and defeating it, and 
defrauding the public of its honest application and execution. 
There is one party that you have it in your power to make odious 
by a conspiracy of this kind, if you choose to enter into it; and if 
you want me to tell you who this party is, it is yourselves. 

What can we do? Well, dear friends, we can do very little — 
very little indeed, to rectify this infamous wrong for these nine 
months to come. We have been betrayed, and the ruin is irrevoc- 
able. Something may yet be done to hold in some little check the 
dogs of havoc that have been let loose upon our town. But the 
most that we can do, after all, is to mark the traitors who have 
wrought the ruin, and teach our children and the whole people to 
abhor their treason. [Long continued applause, again and again 
renewed.] 



NEW TEMPERANCE PUBLICATIONS. 

♦ — -♦- — • 

The American Temperance Publishing House has just issued the follow- 
ing publications, which should be widely circulated : 

Temperance Lectures, by John B. Gough. 

No. I. OUR BATTLE CRY: TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 
NO. 2. THE FORCE OF APPETITE. 
No. 3. THE ONLY REMEDY. 

Each lecture contains 24 pages, in paper cover, and is illustrated by a fine 
wood engraving of 3Ir. Gough, and also his autograph, which alone is worth 
the price of the pamphlet. Price 10 cents each ; per dozen, $1.00. The three 
lectures in one pamphlet, . . . . . . . .25 

American Temperance Speaker. — 12mo. 96 pp. Compiled by 
J. S. Ogilvie. Paper cover, . . . . 2o 

A collection of new and first-class Readings and Recitations, both prose 
and verse, also three excellent dialogues by the leading temperance advo- 
cates, suitable for Declamation, Recitation, Public and Parlor Readings. 
Every organization should have copies of this book for their entertainments. 

Packet of Handbill Tracts— No. 1. Containing 125 tracts. 25 

Packet of Handbill Tracts— No. 2. Containing 125 tracts. 25 

Packet of Handbill Tracts — No. 3. Containing 125 tracts. 25 

Packet of Handbill Tracts— No. 4. Containing 125 tracts. 25 

Packet of Handbill Tracts — No. 5. Containing 125 tracts. 25 

Packet of Handbill Tracts— No. 6. Containing 125 tracts. 25 

These one-page tracts are just the thing for all public meetings, and for 
distribution by societies and individuals through any community. Send for 
a packet, and examine them. 

Illuminate:! Chromo Pledge Card. One contains the Triple 

Pledge, and the other the Simple Pledge. Per 100, 2.00 

American Temperance Stationery Package. Containing 20 

sheets of Note Paper, 20 Envelopes, 8 Illuminated Chronio 

Cards, a Pen, Penholder, and Pencil, . . .25 

Agents Wanted to introduce it. Men and Women, Boys and Girls, can 

make from Three to Five Dollars a day, selling it, because every one that is 

sold will sell another one. Liberal terms offered. Send for particulars, 

Illuminated Temperance Cards. Price, per packet, . 25 

This is a very handsome set of twelve illuminated cards, with Temperance 

Texts on, which may be used as reward cards, or for general distribution. 

Giving one of these beautiful cards to a child in your Temperance Society, or 

Sabbath School, may be the means of forming habits of sobriety, which will 

endure through life. Wili you not send for a packet, and try the experiment ? 

CONCERT EXERCISES. 

We have just published two very interesting and practical exercises which 
every Sabbath School and juvenile organization should have. They have been 
prepared by Mrs. E. H. Thompson, who has given much time and thought to 
this phase of Sabbath School and juvenile instruction. 

No. I. THE CHRISTIAN'S JOURNEY. 

No. 2. THE STORY OF REDEEMING LOVE. 

Xo. 2 is appropriate for a Christmas service, or it can be used to advan- 
tage at any other time. 

They contain 16 pages each. Price 6 cents each. Per dozen, 60 cents. 

In order to introduce them a sample copy of either of them will be sent 
to any address on receipt of a three cent stamp, to pay postage. Any of the 
above publications will be sent, post-paid, on receipt of price. Address, 

J. S. OGILVIE, Publisher, 

29 Rose Street, New York. 



A GRIME AGAINST SOCIETY! 

BY REV. LEONARD WOOLSEY BACON. 

12MO. 86 PAG^S. PRICE, 10 CENTS. 

This is one of the most powerful arraignments ever published 

the liquor traffic and of public officials who allow them- 
selves to be used in its interest and for its advancement. 
Nothing has been published since the famous sermon on 
" Deacon Giles's Distillery " which has created such an intense 
interest and excitement among the liquor dealers and those 
who uphold them, and, in fact, among all classes of people. 
If any organization or individual desires to wake up or revive 
the interest upon the question of Temperance no better docu- 
ment than this can be circulated. We believe that this and 
similar publications will be to the Temperance Cause what 
" Helpers' Impending Crisis " was to the question of slavery 
in this country. 

The author is one of the most able and gifted men of the 
present day, and his thoughts are worthy the careful attention 
of all good people. 

The price has been made low so that it may be widely 
circulated. Price 10 cents each; $1.00 per dozen, post-paid; 
$7.00 per hundred, sent by express at the expense of the 
party ordering them. 

Address 

The American Temperance PnMisMnE House, 

J. S. OGILVIE, Publisher, 

29 R6SE STREET, NEW YORK. 



TemperaEce Lectmn 




By JOHN B. GOUGH. 

No. I . Our Battle Cry: Total Abstinence. 

No. 2. The Power of Appetite. 

No. 3. The Only Remedy 

The American Temperance Publishing House is doing good 
by giving to the thousands who have never had the pleasure oi 
listening to Mr. Gough's words of eloquence the opportunity of 
reading them. In many places great difficulty is often experienced 
in obtaining a suitable temperance lecturer, and it will be found 
that these lectures will often fill the place and supply such a demand. 
They are printed in neat pamphlet form, of 24 pages each, and con- 
tain Mr. Gough's portrait and autograph, Price, 10 cents each, 
$1.00 per dozen. The three lectures are also published in one 
pamphlet, price 25 cents. Sent by mail on receipt of price. 

All Temperance Publications supplied at lowest bates. 
Send for a catalogue and full particulars. Agents wanted, to whom 
the most liberal terms are offered. Address 

J. S. OGILVIE, Publisher, 

29 Rose Street. New York. 



THE AMERICAN 



TEMPERANCE SPEAKER 



Price, paper cover> 25 cents ; 
Compiled by J. S. Ogilvie. 

The American Temperance Publishing House lias 
just published a choice collection of Dialogues, Read- 
ings, Recitations, and Addresses, designed for use in all 
adult and juvenile organizations, and which should be 
in the hands of all who are interested in Temperance 
Work, or in arranging entertainments for Sabbath and 
Day Schools. The following 1 is the 



CONTENTS 



PROSE. 

Honest Publican's Advertise- 
ment ... 80 

lp, A .... 71 

:. tented Pendulum, The 75 

Drinking Destroys the Intellect 90 

Fire ! Fire ! 60 

t Cold Water, A 18 

Tompkins goes to a Spelling 

. . 62 

: of Alcohol, The 7 

die Liquor Trat- • • 54 

Which Will Vou Choo ... 52 



DIALOGUES. 

44 

I 

• • 85 

I 



POETRY 

AngeFs Visit, The 10 

Auction, The 

Beware! 17 

Curious Dose, The 

Death of the Reveller, The 

Don't Drink 

Down in the Mire . . . 78 

Drunkard, The 1 

Dying Girl, The. 

Farewell to the Bottle . . 31 

Father's Example, The 4? 

I Drink Water 12 

Is it True? 30 

Landlord, The 9 

i.ittle Soldier, The 20 

Little Shoes, The 55 

Mournful Story, A 3$ 

My Beautiful Nose 39 

50 

Old Brandy Bottle, The 

Only A Woman Drunk 88 

Wreck, The 35 

What Doet'tThou Here? 73 



It will he scut by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price. 

■\ ( 1 ( 1 r 

J. S. OGILVIE, Publisher, 

•2U HOSE STREET, NEW YORK. 



